Bauhaus 'Optical Colour-Mixer' by NAEF

Isn't it amazing what obscure things you can find in charity shops? We took Lottie to a kids party yesterday and popped into a few charity shops whilst waiting to pick her up. Paul found this - it's a Bauhaus Colour-Mixer - first produced commercially in the 1970s but still in production now I believe.

I love Bauhaus design - even if it's just simple objects. I like the Bauhaus crispness and clarity of concept. Sadly, I can only afford to own a couple of Bauhaus pieces. *sigh*

Just looking through the Bauhaus Archiv book, the spinning top is illustrated and attributed, but has no further information and no concrete year of design. It seems, though, that most of the Bauhaus toys were designed between 1923-1924.

I found something online (although I can't find it now annoyingly) that said Naef started making these in the late 1970s but of course, as you say, it would have been designed much earlier.

Digging through some of my more esoteric reference materials, I found that Naef started reproducing this toy in 1977.